It's a simple question, but I've never got an answer, and I don't know of an answer. Some people even think there is no answer. So how exactly do I get better?

I was sexually abused for 12 years by my cousin, whom was my best friend and I loved him in such a way I had no word for it. My word for it then became his name, Curtis. Last year my world collapsed around me and the illusion was gone. I was being abused not loved or valued. I did things for him that I would've never done had I known, but because I thought he was someone else I did those things willingly and joyfully. But many times I sacrificed myself for his love and I was hurt, but it was okay because he loved me, so I thought. Now all that pain and sacrifice has no meaning, no painkiller, no safety of an illusion or anything to believe in, it's raw and it's real. And that's where all my pain comes from, guilt, shame, disgust, sense of betrayal, abandonment, forsakenness, despair, all those feelings we all know too well.

But how do I get better? What is best to do? I can think of many ways to make the pain go away, but which way is the right way? I could hold on to that illusion I had, I could drown it all with alcohol and drugs, I could kill myself, I could forgive and forget, but still, none of that changes a thing.

The thing that troubles me the most though is whether or not my cousin did have a sense of shame and a sense of love, but couldn't control himself. What if it were just a huge mistake that he can't live down? I may never know how he truly feels or if he is even sorry. So how to I put this behind me? How can I forgive someone who doesn't think they need to be forgiven, or if they're not even sorry? I'm confused. I have to figure out something to do with no facts. Forgive and forget, forgive and never forget, or never forgive and never forget, or resent and hate forever. If I don't have the facts, no matter which one I choose, I will be living with some sort of illusion.

I'll tell you all what I do want. What crosses my mind all the time. What if he did love me, but made a mistake, a huge mistake that he knew he could never make up to me, and he was sorry for. I could still love him. I know I could, but should I? I don't even know what goes through his mind, so how can I come to a conclusion, and how would I even know if he was telling the truth if he lied to me for my whole life? The only way I see myself being healed is if he is sorry and he does love me, but that's not in my control. It's up in the air.

-

I'll tell you all something else, that eats me up inside. I confronted him almost 2 years ago about what he did to me. I told him I loved him and that I wanted to be with him and I didn't care what the family thought.

I almost committed suicide the next day.

He told me he never loved me, he told me he was a nymphomaniac and that I was just his fix. He told me he was fucked up more than I knew. He described himself as this freak, and it shocked me because it was exactly the last thing I expected to hear from him. So I was crying uncontrollably the rest of that night and into the next day, contemplating how I'd kill myself. I had a plan, the perfect plan, and I was going to do it. But to cut that story short, I didn't do it.

Instead I decided to ask him questions. At this point I was still delusional (and would be for a whole year) in thinking he was just lying to me. But the thing I still don't understand is that the next day he was the complete opposite of who he was the night prior. He was my loving cousin again. He told me he was sorry, he never meant to hurt me, and that he'd never do it again, and all this stuff my heart told me I should believe. He told me he was in fact fucked up and if it weren't for me he wouldn't have made it in life, that I was this central person in his life that gave him stability and I provided the friendship/love whatever you want to call it to survive his fucked up life (which he did have a fucked up life). He even came to a session with me and my old therapist to clear things up.

For a YEAR after I confronted him about the abuse (which I had not called abuse or thought of as abuse) I repaired our friendship and we hung out all the time. I held on the the illusion I guess for a year, and we remained best friends despite everything. But it didn't exactly work. We fell back into sex. And this is a grey area to me. I initiated the sex, after he told me he wouldn't try anything with me anymore. So I actually brought that back. It WAS my fault wasn't it? I did want it didn't I? There was no pressure, I did it all by myself, and he even felt bad afterwards. He tried to tell me he didn't want to do it anymore, but it happened 3 more times, once he initiated it. So it happened about 4 times since I confronted him.

Before I had a word for what he did to me, I didn't care. Before I met my ex, I didn't know what abuse was. And before I met my ex, I was still hanging out with my cousin and his boyfriend all the time.

I fucking confronted my abuser before I even had a word to call it, I forgave him before I even went into therapy. I did everything backwards. I mean isn't confronting your abuser usually one of the last things you do when dealing with CSA?

I don't know how to explain myself, and it's hard to tell this story in any kind of order or in any way that makes sense because to me it's fucked up. But in a sense, I was over this, and I brought it back and am holding it over mine and his head relentlessly.

This was very hard to write, and I feel like I will be misinterpreted and I will be misunderstood. I went into a fucking rage because I couldn't remember one word he said to me when I was typing this and spent 30 minutes just trying to remember the word he used to describe me, his "fix". So I thoughts were definitely jumbled. But I just had to get this out there, I wish I could portray my situation better, but this is all I can do. My mind is screaming run away, keep away right now. So I can't think, but what I've written will have to be sufficient for now.

_________________________
"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein

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